India's COVID-19 tally crossed the 17-lakh mark on Sunday, just two days after it went past 16 lakh, with 54,735 cases being reported in a day, while the recoveries crossed the 11-lakh mark, according to the Union Health Ministry data. The country now has 17,50,723 infections of the deadly virus which has affected more than 17.5 million people globally. With 853 COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours, the number of deaths count has climbed to 37,364, the government said. More than 11.45 lakh patients have recovered; the recovery rate stood at 65.43 per cent this morning.India has tested a total of 1,98,21,831 samples so far. The positivity rate - percentage of patients who have tested positive for coronavirus - stood at 11.81 per cent.